# Engineering Site Lead

**Company:** [Perplexity](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/perplexity)
**Location:** London, United Kingdom
**Role:** Engineering Management
**Experience:** 10+ years
**Skills:** Distributed Systems, AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure, Infrastructure Automation, Gpu Infrastructure, Ml Training Pipelines, Ml Inference Pipelines, Model Serving, Kubernetes, Terraform, Container Orchestration, CI/CD, Llm Infrastructure, AI Infrastructure
**Posted:** 2026-08-12

> Leads Perplexity’s London engineering site, building and managing infrastructure and AI infrastructure teams while setting technical direction for reliable, scalable AI/ML systems. Requires 10+ years of software engineering experience, substantial infrastructure expertise, and people-management experience.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities

### Site Leadership & Culture
- Establish and lead Perplexity's London office, setting its cultural foundation and operating principles.
- Build a collaborative, high-performance engineering culture aligned with company values and the London tech ecosystem.
- Serve as the primary point of contact for London-based activities and represent the site in company-wide strategic discussions.
- Partner with People/HR, Finance, and Operations to ensure seamless site operations.
- Drive local community engagement, partnerships, and brand presence in the London and European tech community.

### Technical Leadership
- Directly manage and mentor one or more infrastructure or AI infrastructure teams in London, comprising 5–15+ engineers.
- Set technical direction and strategy for London-based infrastructure initiatives in alignment with company-wide goals.
- Drive architectural decisions and technical excellence across teams.
- Ensure robust systems for deployment, monitoring, scalability, and reliability of infrastructure supporting AI/ML workloads.
- Collaborate with global engineering leaders to align on technical standards, best practices, and cross-site initiatives.

### Team Building & Talent
- Build and scale high-performing infrastructure and AI infrastructure teams through strategic hiring.
- Develop and execute a talent acquisition strategy for the London site in partnership with recruiting.
- Create career development frameworks and growth opportunities for engineers.
- Foster technical mentorship and knowledge sharing across teams and sites.

### Cross-functional Collaboration
- Partner with Product, Engineering, and Research teams globally to understand infrastructure needs and deliver solutions.
- Coordinate with other site leads and engineering leaders to ensure effective cross-site collaboration.
- Contribute to company-wide infrastructure strategy and roadmap planning.
- Facilitate knowledge transfer and best-practice sharing across global teams.

## Requirements

- 10+ years of experience in software engineering, including 5+ years in infrastructure, cloud infrastructure, or AI infrastructure roles.
- 3+ years of people-management experience, including building and scaling teams.
- Proven track record of establishing or significantly growing an engineering site or office.
- Deep technical expertise in distributed systems, cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure, and infrastructure automation.
- Experience supporting large-scale AI/ML systems, including GPU infrastructure and orchestration, ML training and inference pipelines, and model serving and deployment at scale.
- Strong understanding of Kubernetes, Terraform, container orchestration, and CI/CD systems.
- Demonstrated ability to set technical vision and drive execution across multiple teams.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills.
- Experience working in fast-paced, high-growth technology companies.
- Passion for building inclusive, diverse, and high-performing teams.

## Nice-to-haves

- Experience at companies focused on AI/ML, search, or large-scale consumer applications.
- Previous experience as a site lead, office lead, or similar multi-team leadership role.
- Background building infrastructure for LLM training or inference.
- Contributions to open-source infrastructure or AI infrastructure projects.
- Experience scaling teams from 0 to 20+ engineers.
- Active involvement in the London or European tech community.
- MBA or advanced technical degree.

## Compensation & Benefits

- Competitive compensation including equity.
- Comprehensive benefits package.
- Flexible work environment.

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